A Few Favorites: Christmas Cookie Edition

This week has been crazy.  Work has been nuts, but even more so because there's been inservices (who schedules inservices for the week before Christmas?), fruit pizzas to make (what fruit is in season, in Wisconsin in December?).  My car has been in and out of the shop about three times waiting for a part to come in.  My dad and I did some made dash Christmas shopping.  There's presents to be wrapped, cards still needing to be sent, and things that I hope arrive by the date Amazon said they would.

But the one thing I do have done is my Christmas baking.  I actually had that done a few weeks ago.  I was going to take pictures of everything and post them, but I'm too tired.  So, I'm just going to round up the recipes and post them instead.  I like a lot of bang for my buck.  I'm not beyond shortcuts if the end result is fabulous.  So, here are links to some of my favorite recipes for this Christmas.


I love this Peppermint Cookie Bark from Your Home Based Mom.  It combines white almond bark with salty pretzels, rich Oreos, peppermint candy canes, and marshmallows into a delicious treat.  It looks like it takes a lot more work than it really does.



These peanut butter cups are great. They're a little time consuming, but the end result is worth it. I found this recipe from a  Taste of Home magazine a few years back and I make it for Christmas and sometimes even for Valentine's Day.  These look super cute in little mini muffin cups. And here's a tip, instead of buying six Hershey bars, just buy one of the jumbo Hershey bars, it'll be much cheaper per ounce.



I got the recipe for these zebra cookies in a cookbook the school cooks gave all the kids for Christmas when I was in kindergarten. I still have it. And I still make several recipes out of it. These look super putzy, but basically, you just make the dough, stack up your layer, let it stiffen up in the refrigerator, and then take it out and cut into cookies. You can find the recipe and great step by step instructions on Lingonberry Jam.



Rolo pretzels are super easy. Just three ingredients- Rolos, pretzels, and pecan halves. These are pretty close to a pecan turtle,only without all the work. And the best part is that they only take a few minutes to bake, and you can load a cookie sheet plum full. I used two bags of rolos and fit everything on one baking sheet. Honestly, unwrapping the little buggers is what took the most time. You can find the recipe at Hershey's Kitchen.


I made other candies and cookies too, but these ones are great if you're looking to squeeze some last minute baking in before Christmas. Enjoy!